But You Don’t Have To Aim A Shotgun! WRONG

A a recent 3-Day Shotgun Class offsite Gunsite Academy class in Nunnely TN, students were tasked with successfully engaging the 6″ steel targets that popped up in front of them ten yards away. When you watch the video, note the number of times that students had to reengage targets because they didn’t put enough pellets on target for the system to register a hit.

Keep that in mind when you think about using shotguns in a home defense context, as the pattern is unlikely to open up beyond fist-sized, regardless of load, at most in-home distances.

You do indeed have to aim a shotgun as you would a rifle or handgun to assure yourself of good hits in a self-defense context.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com.
Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.
He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.
https://bearingarms.com/author/bobowens-bearingarms/